Many composers, theorists, aestheticians, as well as writers have been inspired by Metastasio’s libretto Il Demofoonte. In particular, many of them have been captivated by the text of the aria Misero pargoletto, sung by Timante, the supposed son of the King Demofoonte. The advanced Prague Opera Society also staged its own version of Demofoonte in the Kotzen Theatre in 1771, with a setting by Jan Evangelista Koželuh.
The just published volume is considerably enhanced by the inclusion of an extensive catalogue of the librettos and musical sources for all the operatic settings of Demofoonte in the 18th century that are known up today. The catalogues presents an outcome of the research by A. Llorens, G. Rubiales, and N. Usula, team members of the ERC project "DIDONE. The Sources of Absolute Music: Mapping Emotions in Eighteenth-Century Italian Opera", led by Prof. Álvaro Torrente at Madrid University. The publication includes a photo-documentation both of the conference and the performance of Hasse’s opera Il Demofoonte, which was staged at the Festival of Baroque Art by Ondřej Macek and his ensemble Hof-Musici.
List of the authors: Tarcisio Balbo, Kamila Hálová, Wolfgang Hochstein, Milada Jonášová, Ana Llorens, Raffaele Mellace, Gorka Rubiles, Manfred Hermann Schmid, Roland Dieter Schmidt-Hensel, Álvaro Torrente, Lucio Tufano, Nicola Usula, Tomislav Volek, Steffen Voss.